Automation

ANY lumber worker who has been influenced by

alarmist reports regarding the immediate ad-
vent of automation, with accompanying mass
unemployment, would do well to read two docu-
ments with care.

One such document is the report on automation |

prepared for the IWA International Convention

by the Research Director, E. W. Kenney. The
_ Same approach to the subject is taken in the reso-

lution adopted by the recent CCL convention.

Examination of these documents will demon-
strate to the enquirer that the trade union move-
ment is awake to the trend toward automation,
and is confident that adjustments can be made
which will avert hardship among industrial work-
ers. : .

This is one of the tasks for which the trade
union movement has been gathering strength. It
behooves the worker alerted to the impact of auto-
mation to uphold the hand of his union as it faces
this old problem in new and spectacular form.

The trade union movement has acquired wis-
dom through years of stern experience. Organized
labor today has an outlook as modern as that of
any other section of society.

Industrial workers, conversant with scientific
processes, know that it is impossible to arrest tech-
nological progress. They realize that it would not
be in their best interests to try.

In the early and formative days of trade
unions, they experienced the Luddite riots, during
which the workers vented their rage against the
new power machines, which had wiped out their
hand crafts. They found out eventually that the
new industrial machine created more jobs than it
wiped out. In the light of this experience, it is the
part of wisdom for organized labor to so act as to
ensure that automation is made to provide greater
abundance and leisure for all.

It is no accident that the pending AFL-CIO
merger will furnish the workers on this continent
with a powerful instrument to ward off any of the
social evils which may attend the introduction of
automation by irresponsible corporations. The
trade union movement is now better able to influ-
ence adjustments to the new productive processes.

The installation of more automatic machines
of the type to which we have become accustomed
is not automation. The definition provided by the
IWA Research Director should be studied in this
regard. He states:

“Automation is the substitution of mech-
anical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, and
electronic devices for human organs of obser-
vation, decision, and effort, so as to increase
productivity, control quality and reduce
costs.”

One must think in terms of the control and
direction of complex productive processes by an
electronic brain, carrying out instructions from a
punched card, or recording tape with. uncanny
precision. :

The resolution of the CCL convention is there-
fore timely. It proposes as the first practical step,
that all available information be compiled and
considered by an authority, established jointly by
labor, management, and government.

. Based on the facts so examined, steps should
then be taken by all three in-combination to plan
adjustment of employment conditions by an effec-
tive re-alignment of the working force. Social
security measures should accompany this plan-
ning, that income levels may be raised in a manner
commensurate with the new productive capacity.

Although there is no occasion for panic, there
is occasion for early and intelligent action.

The action proposed by the CCL convention to
be taken by the unions themselves is the study and
re-vamping of their plans with vision, that the
structure of-the unions, the procedures and objec-
tives of collective bargaining and political action,
may enable them to breast the incoming waves of
the second industrial revolution.

TORONTO (CPA)—A capacity
crowd was present to discuss the
future of political action within
the new united labor body when
delegates to the National Politi-
cal Action Conference met. prior
to the 15th annual convention of
the Canadian Congress of Labor
here.

The more than 200 delegates
to the conference were said by
PAC officials to have set a re-
cord for attendance at pre-con-
vention political action con-
ferences.

Lloyd Fell, National Chairman
of CCL-PAG, Henry Weisbach,
PAC Executive Secretary, Don-
ald MacDonald, Secretary-Trea-
surer of the CCL, and CCL Vice-
Presidents C, H. Millard and
George Burt addressed the meet-
ing. The three last named offic
ers, who are also members of the
TLC-CCL Unity Committee, re-
lated the details of political pol-
iey within the proposed Canadian
Labor Congress to the delegates.
Representatives of each province
also gave reports on PAC activi-
ties in their area during the past
year.

UMWA ON
CARPET

TORONTO (CPA) — The Ex-
ecutive Council of the Canadian
Congress of Labor referred to
the 1955-56 Executive the ques-
tion of suspension of the United
Mineworkers of America. The
miners’ union, affiliated with the
CCL in Canada but without con-
gress in the United States, is con-
siderably in arrears in its affilia~
tion fees to the CCL.

Under the laws of the Congress
non-payment of fees invalidates
the UMW from sending delegates
representing its 25,000 Canadian
members to the CCL annual con-
vention. Should the union and the
CCL not reach a suitable ar-
rangement on the question of
payment, the UMW faces sus-
pension or expulsion from the
Canadian Congress of Labor.

Alex B. Macdonald

Barrister & Solicitor
Notary Public

751 Granville Street
VANCOUVER, B.C.

Telephone TAtlow 6641

SOLICITOR TO THE 1. W. A.

CCL RE-NAMES CCF
AS POLITICAL ARM

TORONTO (CPA) — The
CCF Party was once again re-
affirmed as the ‘political arm of
labor’ by delegates to the an-

- nual convention of the Cana-

dian Congress of Labor held at
the Royal York Hotel here. The
CCL has backed the CCF party
since 1943.

The resolution on political ac-
tion concurred in by the conven-
tion resolutions, committee was
one of a large number on the
subject. There was no discussion
of the resolution and it was car-
ried ‘with only four of the more
than 900 delegates registering
opposition.

An uproar was touched off on
the convention floor shortly fol-
lowing passage of the resolution
when a number of delegates re-
quested that it be re-opened to
permit discussion of political af-
fairs. Convention chairman A, R.
Mosher ruled the motion to re-
open debate ‘out of order’ and
this decision resulted in an out-
burst of whistling, foot-stamping
and desk thumping. A challenge
to the ruling of the chair by
Doug. McEntee, UAW, Toronto,
—a CCF candidate in the last
elections—was defeated by a vote

of 828 to 297.

UNION COLLECTS
$5000 BACK PAY

TORONTO (CPA)—The Con-
solidated West Petroleum Co.,
Port Alma, Ontario, has been
ordered to pay a group of eight
employees a total of approxim-
ately $5,000 back pay because of
the company’s interference in
union organization, Henry G.
Rhodes, Ontario Regional Direct-

or of the Canadian Congress of
Labor, has announced. Reinstate-

ment of the employees was also
ordered,

The ruling was given by Ma-.
gistrate I. B. Craig, Chatham,
who acted as arbitrator. He
found that “the management and
directors of the company inter-
fered with the men organizing a
union and that George Fredericks
and James Fredericks were fired
for union activities and for no
other reason.”

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